Customer Reviews

The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture (Michael Glazier Books)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It is so good to see The Revelatory Text back in print! It is one of the most important primary reference tools for the study of scripture available. The writing style is rich in language and challenging in the application of exegetical principles. Schnieders also provides the standard by which most theology schools and seminaries structure their understanding of sacred scripture within a historical context. Her language has now become the common form of expression in theological conversations today. The only difference between this re-printed version of The Revelatory Text and Schnieders' first edition is the second preface. Since Schneiders wrote a classic the first time, she now only needs to comment briefly on it.

Sandra Schneiders has in this work provided students and theologians alike with an invaluable resource on hermeneutical study, and post-modern Biblical scholarship. Her attempt to work with the text from an existentialist experience is refreshing considering the complete secularisation of Scripture by other authors. However, when engaging her example hermeneutic of suspiscion, I asked myself, "Is this Christian existentialism or is it Feminist existentialism." Once again, infant Christianity appears as the butt of a scholastic enterprise that projects current ideology onto ancient text, and what makes this all the more difficult is that it involves at times imaginative reconstruction. Despite its reflection of popular white middle class ethic, this book is a handy resource, if only for its dealings with 'scientific methodology', and Schneiders' immense notions of spirituality refreshingly engage Sacred text, filling a vacuum in modern academic theology.

This is the kind of book that articulates ideas that you had been dimly aware of, but hadn't quite put into your own words. I only wish I'd been introduced to this book in my own graduate classes.

Schneiders has helpfully digested and synthesized a lot of hermeneutical theory, and presents it accessibly. In so doing she has provided a working vocabulary and guide for people who want to read and share scripture for meaning and transformation while avoiding the dangers and pitfalls of precritical naivety.

I thoroughly recommend this book for all students of scripture, academic, clergy, or lay. It is an invaluable aid to interpreting ancient, sacred texts meaningfully in the twenty-first century world.

This book does give a good overview of hermeneutics. Although I found the book difficult to read, it is still worthwhile to use.
The reason for difficulty is the fact that Schneiders uses a lot of repetition of words. What would have been handy in the book is to use schemes to prove or to justify statements as opposed to only text.